


have you ever had a dream (that you were so sure was real)

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Framework, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 19:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10771011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: Victoria Hand recruits him for SHIELD.But it is Leopold Fitz who recruits him for Hydra.





	have you ever had a dream (that you were so sure was real)

**Author's Note:**

> For a fic swap with Chris! I hope you enjoy this framework FitzWard, I basically played fast and loose with the framework concept and am still just going to be treated this like Earth 2 and nobody can stop me.

Victoria Hand recruits him for SHIELD.

But it is Leopold Fitz who recruits him for Hydra.

  
  


There had been talk before.

Victoria who had never trusted anyone for very long, insisting that there were whispers among the SHIELD ranks that not everything was as it had seemed, that even her own team could not be trusted.

_ Trust no one _ , those had been her exact words and Grant had took them to heart. 

Hydra was among them, had been from the beginning, family lines running back centuries, back even before World War II, worming their way into the system of great organizations and taking control of them from within. SHIELD was just another stepping stool for them and the SHIELD Agents would eventually become disposable. 

The only way to survive was to know what was going on, whether you were loyal to SHIELD or to Hydra, being in the know would save you. 

At least, that was the plan. 

  
  


He had never paid the scientist much attention before. They had passed each other once or twice in the Triskelion. Science and operations were usually separate unless a mission called for it and this time a mission had. 

He watches as Doctor Fitz cradles a metal briefcase to his chest, eyes suspiciously darting around the place. For some reason it’s hard to draw his eyes away from him.

There’s two others with him. 

An older agent, Felix Blake, one of those that Victoria had warned him about, who stares at Grant a moment too long before looking away. Unnerving and unsettling in a familiar way.

The other is a young woman that he doesn’t recognize, who looks almost angry to see him there. It’s a minor expression, as if her face is not used to twisting into something like emotions. 

She is the one who speaks, “This isn’t how this is supposed to happen.” 

“Excuse me?”

If anything she only looks more appalled by him speaking to her.

_ Scientists. Always thinking that they’re better than everyone else _ . 

“I need to fix this,” she says sharply standing up, “I need to-”

“Ophelia,” Fitz says, soft and certain, enough to cause her to freeze. 

“He shouldn’t be here.” 

_ Way to make a man feel unwanted. _

Fitz frowns at that ever so slightly, but then she’s off with Blake trailing after her like a loyal agent despite the fact that he would clearly outrank her by any normal standards. 

Any normal standards.

But there were other standards, ones that Victoria had pointed out to him, that cared about lineage rather than efficiency or seniority of an agent. 

He’s not sure what prompts him to sit down there next to Fitz, maybe it’s just the fact that it’s been a long day and none of this makes sense, maybe it’s those  _ trust no one  _ lectures rising up in his head again, information that could be gained, but he does - he takes the seat and asks, “Lady troubles?” 

“You have no idea.”

That’s the beginning of it all, if anyone were to ask. 

Though it didn’t really start until hours later over drinks.

Two beers in a laboratory that was far too advanced to belong solely to a nineteen year old scientist. The briefcase sitting just off to the side where Fitz’s eyes would dart at it with nervousness every few minutes. A sort of slight hesitance about his words as he brings up the topic that Grant had known to be inevitable.

“What do you know about Hydra?”

  
  


Cambridge happens in 2008, and the world falls apart. 

SHIELD falls. 

Victoria dies. 

By his hand.

On  _ his  _ orders. 

And Grant - 

“He’s loyal to Hydra, one of my own,” Fitz insists, his words having long since lost their light and turning darker and colder instead. “He would not have killed her if he was not loyal to us.”

The woman beside Fitz seems to accept this, demanding is allegiance with a grace that disgusts him. Not with just with her, not just with them, but with himself. 

Grant says  _ Hail Hydra  _ for the first time, with blood of his mentor staining his hands, and earns one of Fitz’s half smiles as a reward. 

It doesn’t feel like an equivalent exchange. 

  
  


He’s always been a double agent. 

Or perhaps a triple agent. 

It depends on who is asking.

His loyalties are with SHIELD, with the resistance, with those who know the truth that not everything is right in the world that Hydra is painting for them. 

That Alexander Pierce.

That his second in command, Madame Hydra.

That Hydra’s top scientist,  _ the Doctor _ .

Tells them. 

Suddenly Grant becomes one of the resistance’s most valuable agents. 

  
  


They’re in his laboratory drinking. Fitz panicking over that woman that he believes has been taken to another world, trusting Grant enough to tell him his fears. To admit that Ophelia has not been on a secret mission for Hydra, but rather missing for the past two months. 

(It will only feel like slight betrayal when he will repeat this information to the resistence hours later, rejoicing in their chance to rise again now that the second in command of Hydra is seemingly  _ missing  _ from this world.)

When it happens it is an accident. 

Fitz distressed enough that his hands shake, and he stares down at them like this is some strange new concept that he had never shaken like this before in his life, and yet for Grant it seems familiar. 

He reaches across the space, to hold onto Fitz’s hands, to steady him. 

And then Fitz leans across the space between to bring them closer together.

To press lips against his own that taste like beer and are just a touch too cold. He knows he shouldn’t kiss him back, that he should end this now, that this man is not the kindness he shows Grant on occasion but rather a darkness that shows in the very experiments still spread out on the tables behind them. 

But he does not stop.

He kisses him back. 

Kisses him until he forgets how to breathe. 

When they do pull back, eventually, long enough that Ward has forgotten all about his loyaliy to anyone other than - “Fitz.” 

“Call me Leopold,” he says.

So he does, “Leopold.” 

  
  


It isn’t a romance. 

Not really.

Not when Grant is working for the resistance, not when they will never be on the same side. 

But Leopold kisses him like it could be romance. Let's Grant pull him into a supply closet and turn a lunch break into so much more, like the could be fools in love.    

There’s something there in those moments with Leopold when the rest of the world falls away, when duty and SHIELD and Hydra are all forgotten and all he can seem to think about is who is pressed up against him. 

“I feel like I was always meant for this,” he says, one time, feeling terribly romantic himself, feeling as if there is nowhere else he ever needs to be again. 

Leopold laughs before pressing a kiss to his lips, “Maybe we were.”

  
  


But then Ophelia - no,  _ Madame Hydra -  _ comes back. 

And everything changes. 

“You keep going away from the plan,” she says, leaning back against her desk. “Why is that?

He’s never been up here before, the official offices of the head of Hydra. It’s unnerving. But also enlightening. If he survives this encounter this will be important information to get back to the resistance.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“No,” she agrees, “You wouldn’t.” 

In a moment of boldness he asks, “Why am I here?”

“Leopold really cares for you,” Madame Hydra says. “He’s the one who brought you here, technically, it’s not deliberate, but it’s an inconvenience. You are an inconvenience. 

She’s in control now. Has been ever since Alexander Pierce’s mysterious death following her even mysterious return. Nothing adding up as perfectly as it should. 

He hates her. 

Hates everything that she stands for.

Hates the way she says  _ Leopold  _ like a possessive thing. 

“I need him to stop doing that. It clouds his judgment, takes time away from me.” 

“What do you want me to do break up with him?” 

It’s said as a joke. 

Mostly. 

They’re not dating. It isn’t anything real, nothing more than a rushed thing that barely even counts. That certainly isn’t real. 

“Oh, I can arrange that, I’m just letting you know this as a courtesy.” 

“What does that-”

She waves her hand in a flippant manner, “You’re dismissed, Agent Ward.” 

  
  


The next time he crosses paths with Leopold - with  _ Fitz  _ \- with  _ the Doctor  _ \- he is met with eyes that are unfamiliar and cold.

He doesn’t say anything, gives a small nod that is met with the dismissive glance of a man who believes himself to be superior to everyone else and a cold. 

“Hail Hydra.” 

It is as if he has never seen Grant before in his life. 

He wonders how? Why? What? 

But he does not ask. 

He cannot ask. 

It’s better this way, no chance of doubting his own loyalties. 

He hates her.

He hates her.

He hates her. 

  
  


Two weeks later, Skye joins Hydra.  


End file.
